Nicole Cooke celebrates after winning the world road race title in 2008

And she has attacked everyone from UK Anti-Doping to British Cycling for being complacent over the abuse of TUEs, before admitting that she was able to inject corticosteroid Kenacort for a knee injury in 2003 through a doctor’s note.

But in her closing comments she compared this to Wiggins using the substance, also called triamcinolone, three times – before the 2011 and 2012 Tour de France and the 2013 Giro d’Italia.

Cooke, 33, appeared via video link before chair Damian Collins and MPs from across the political divide as they listened to her scathing attacks on institutional sexism and alleged malpractice in the sport.

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The Bridgend biker admitted that she questioned herself after taking Kenacort, after long discussions with doctors and team coaches.

Cooke said: “I had a TUE for this treatment receiving the same steroid that Bradley Wiggins used more recently. At the time it could only be used with a TUE, whether in or out of competition.

“That injection failed to address the medical problems and I continued not to race and ended up having surgery in May 2004.”

But she also highlighted how Wiggins appeared to take Kenacort at the height of the season, before his biggest races. She said: “What I find disturbing is the chronological coincidence that this is used just before major targets of the racing season. I am sceptical based on these coincidences.”

In Cooke's written evidence, she said: "Measures and schemes put in place to fight the abuse of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are inadequate and ineffective in planning, management and execution - the so called 'war on PEDs'. I summarise that as the wrong people, fighting the wrong war, in the wrong way, with the wrong tools.

"British Cycling... is not responsible to anyone other than itself for its own actions.

"It has an executive board, but this exerts minimal control of its executive officers and is filled with a majority who approve of the maldistribution of public funds."

Cooke also cited a bizarre incident in 2008 when she was told she could not wear a well-fitting British Cycling skinsuit to compete at the road world championships, because there was no Sky sponsorship logo on it.

So she got team-mate Emma Pooley to cut out and sew the letters onto a more aerodynamic and comfortable skinsuit.

Elsewhere, she pointed the finger at British Cycling for a poor attitude towards women's road cycling. She told MPs: "I would summarise cycling as a sport run by men, for men, with a structure not responsible to anyone other than itself."

British Cycling's response to Nicole Cooke

While there is still a way to go, British Cycling is absolutely committed to resolving the historic gender imbalance in our sport.

Our ambition - launched in 2013 - to get one million more women cycling by 2020 has led to widespread changes across the sport at all levels including a 70 per cent increase in the number of female coaches, the creation of Britain's first ever international level stage race in the Women's Tour, the continued growth of our female-only rides programme, Breeze, and British Cycling's female membership surpassing 20,000 members less than 10 years after the organisation’s total membership was less than that.

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